Put the Pen to the Paper!

SELECTIVE SUBJECT MATTER: WHY ARE CERTAIN TOPICS ALRIGHT FOR PUBLIC CONSUMPTION AND OTHER NOT SO

“What’s ok and what’s not?”

topics for talking

Have you ever wondered why there are certain topics that you can showcase on television or in film, but when someone else talks about it or another topic people tend to get sensitive? Meaning, if you make a film about being handicap, gay, a certain ethnic group’s struggles, or gender related it’s fine. But the moment a joke is told by a comedian, then the rules change.

Who decided that we are going to live in a society where everything must be handled with kid gloves? But who also decides who can talk about what and how they talk about the subject?

giving up power

We always ask how did we lose the ability to express ourselves the way we do so. Well, it’s not the government that took those rights away. We willingly give them away. We see something on television or film that offends us, and then we automatically rally against it. And that is fine when the subject at hand is truly truly offensive. But what does that mean anymore?

It seems that anything in today’s society is going to offend someone. So how do you decide who is able to speak and how they are able to speak in the medium of film and television?

context

“In context,” is something that is lost in our society. You can’t say anything that may be taken out of context. Yet anything said in the forum of entertainment can always be taken out of context. And that is because not only are there offensive subjects in society, but people look for reasons to be angry as well. Yet, we can be quite selective with what offends us.

Like I said earlier, a film about a rape victim, we can showcase an actual simulated rape, but not a joke. There is nothing funny about sexual assault, but showing the actual incident on screen should also strike a nerve in people. But people have a hard time taking something that feels painful and making light of it because there is a high degree of vulnerability. And no one wants to be vulnerable.